Using hand me down clubs, young Tommy Warren likes golf, but considers it just one of many competitors for his time. All that changes after a summer of caddying for a low-handicap amateur. Instead of payment, Tommy receives three gifts that turn out to be priceless introductions to the charms and settings of golf, near and far. Eventually, he crosses paths with a thirteen-year-old prodigy in Southern California. The effects of that early encounter with Tiger Woods reverberate down through the years and back to Warren's old home town.
The golf that Tom Warren has experienced provides a reference point for growing up in the fifties and sixties. It also offers insights into the game that apply to twenty-first century youth and their elders. Prize-winning author Clint McCown says this about "An Old Caddie" "Just as there's more to the game than merely hitting a little white ball around a pasture, there's more to this book than golf. We get a portrait of America itself ranging from the time when everybody liked Ike to the time when everybody likes Tiger. In telling his own tale, Warren manages as well to weave in a fine account of the cultural history that accompanies the game, touching upon sensitive issues of class and race, and reaffirming golf's more populist roots.